Store expanding by shrinkage

Published: Thursday, November 15, 2012 at 06:50 PM.

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Cottage Gifts also offers personalized earrings and necklaces, along with more standard jewelry, picture frames, candles, décor and other gifts.

Gourmet food gifts line the shelves, too, as well as seasonal décor and high-end baby blankets and plush toys.

The open house on Thursday had customers sampling chocolates, marinated feta, goat cheese cheesecakes, cheese straws and other goodies available either at Cottage Gifts or through the floral shop’s Gourmet to Go.

The space is small, but the dual business owners say they have confidence their products can draw customers looking specifically for their wares, as well as walk-ins from the largely residential surrounding area.

Ouzts also says he’ll make the homey spot work for his floral purposes. In spring, he’ll open an outdoor potting shed to fill customers’ last-season containers with that season’s plants.

It’s part of his strategy to serve today’s budget-minded consumer.

For the true flower lovers, he’ll also be able to grow a cutting garden and then sell locally grown dahlias and other blossoms.

Ouzts is a long-time floral and garden product designer who keeps shops in Gastonia as well as in the resort town of Blowing Rock.

Climbing the Walls in Blowing Rock found a new audience when Ouzts bought out a local produce market. With the local vegetables proving popular, he went a step further and added Gourmet to Go, a line of locally prepared frozen dishes.

The offerings were so in-demand Ouzts wanted to introduce Gastonia to the Brevard-made Gourmet to Go dishes, along with Moravian chicken pies and South Carolina-produced goat cheese creations that were gaining a following in the mountains.

“They may or may not buy flowers but people are going to eat,” says Ouzts, who calls the prepared dishes from Brevard gourmet food with a touch of comfort.

High overhead in his former, larger space made it hard to add to inventory and buy the extra freezer necessary.

So he partnered with gift shop entrepreneurs Melissa Anderson and Tina Long, both of Gastonia, to open a shared shop.

Climbing the Walls and Cottage Gifts have been at 3330 Robinwood Road for a full two weeks.

“I’m really lucky to be with these people,” Ouzts said.

Anderson worked at the now-closed An initial Impression on Union Road in Gastonia. Long was a customer there.

Both thought the store’s closing left a gap in the local monogram market. Cottage Gifts aims to fill that by providing monograms on items bought there or brought from outside.

Vinyl monogram stickers, popular with a younger crowd, add to the tailor-made inventory.

Cottage Gifts also offers personalized earrings and necklaces, along with more standard jewelry, picture frames, candles, décor and other gifts.

Gourmet food gifts line the shelves, too, as well as seasonal décor and high-end baby blankets and plush toys.

The open house on Thursday had customers sampling chocolates, marinated feta, goat cheese cheesecakes, cheese straws and other goodies available either at Cottage Gifts or through the floral shop’s Gourmet to Go.

The space is small, but the dual business owners say they have confidence their products can draw customers looking specifically for their wares, as well as walk-ins from the largely residential surrounding area.

Ouzts also says he’ll make the homey spot work for his floral purposes. In spring, he’ll open an outdoor potting shed to fill customers’ last-season containers with that season’s plants.

It’s part of his strategy to serve today’s budget-minded consumer.

For the true flower lovers, he’ll also be able to grow a cutting garden and then sell locally grown dahlias and other blossoms.

Ouzts calls the two-for-one store an upstart instead of a startup. And he believes it’s one way small businesses can stay viable in a chain-driven environment.

“We’re going to tighten up, like everyone else,” he said.

The hope for Ouzts is that a smaller building is the first step in attracting a bigger market.